


So Little I Know

by archea2



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Fluff and Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosette sees Marius kiss and worship her father's handkerchief...and comes to the wrong conclusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly humour, so don't expect hot Valjean/Marius porn here - I wouldn't want to disappoint readers! But if anyone feels like turning Cosette's agenda into reality in their fics, go ahead and PM me. I think she did have a point, mistaken as it was.:)

As a rule, mysteries were no secrets to Cosette.  
  
They were  _everywhere._ From Papa’s little valise, that smelled like marjory and frankincense only better, to Sister Saint-Michel’s nose - red in summer and white in winter, a clear infringement on the common law of noses. Then shadows and dreams, and the odd fact that Cosette who was also Euphrasie and Mademoiselle Fauchelevent, still dimly recalled somebody calling her a dog-lack-name.  
  
By now she was versed in keeping her eyes and ears open. While some mysteries, like the valise and the names, were like the small barred window in the convent’s parlour, barely letting in any light, others did let you see through. The trick, Cosette had learnt, was that to think very hard and very long about every new strange thing until it _felt_ you thinking, and as a result grew less strange. Once friendly, it let you take it up and turn it about, again and again, until it turned into a Good Thing. Like Sister’s nose, which sneezed upon her rounds of the dorms, allowing the girls to snuggle their green apples (and Adèle’s copy of  _The Misfortunes of Virtue_ , a gift from her cousin François which she said was a life of the Blessed Martyrs) under their counterpanes.  
  
Today, the mystery was a young man.  
  
The young man who was always there when Papa and she took their daily walk in the Luxembourg garden. Cosette hadn’t spotted him at first, because Papa always had something interesting to say about the roses, or the statues, or the caterpillars, but after a while she had noticed that there were always three of them in the alley. Then she had asked to see the round pool, where little children floated their boats on the finer days, and there was the young man, boatless, looking down at his boots. Then they had stopped coming for a while, because Papa had to travel to Montfermeuil and confer with a tree, as he did now and then, and when they showed up again, up came the young man, looking as if he had just swallowed a whole patch of blue sky with the sun pinned to it.  
  
While Papa talked, he gazed at them intently, mouth slack, headgear askew, and when Cosette’s eyes darted off to him in silent concern (because this was how Sister Marthe used to look when her toe corns troubled her), he blushed and studied the ground with a vengeance.  
  
Cosette wondered if he was also fond of caterpillars.  
  
Winter came, putting an end to the roses, and Papa began to talk about the statues instead. He told her about Monsieur Condorcet, who had studied calculus in order to invent the popular jury so that poor people got a fairer trial, was martyred for his theorem, but went to Heaven all the same. It was all very interesting, but surely the young man must have heard it before? Most young men who came here were students who could afford no other distraction (Papa said once, adding that his darling, of course, was a young lady who was entitled every sane distraction the world could offer and would she like to see a bedridden portress after their walk?).  
  
But then of course Papa was Papa, and always spoke beautifully. And perhaps the young man wanted to rest  _his_ toe corns.  
  
The winter months trudged by. Spring bounced on their heels, and Cosette found that she had grown another five inches and needed a new dress. Papa looked a little sad at the news, and kept giving bizarre hints that Cosette should at least keep her plush purple hat, Uncle Fauchelevent’s legacy because she had liked it so much on the old scarecrow guarding the tulip bed. Cosette laughed, because everyone knew that you couldn’t wear old and blue with new and white, not unless you were getting married, and how could she marry anyone when she only knew Papa in that new world of theirs?  
  
There were nurses and children and the pool which looked like a tender blue eye, and at least twice as many little dogs to yip this, that and the other. There was the young man, too, and his eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw them. He looked very dashing under the brand new sun, and Cosette could not help smiling at him from under her white hat. Papa, who appeared to be done with the statues, didn’t notice anything and began to tell her about the pigeons instead.  
  
The young man blushed chastely, almost reproachfully. Then he did something very odd.  
  
He took something white out of his pocket; looked right and left; bit his underlip and glanced sideways at Papa, then at her. Cosette saw that it was a handkerchief and opened her eyes wider. The young man pressed the handkerchief to his heart, to his cheek; his face the colour of a Red Delicious now. He brushed his lips to the fabric, and, as he did, it dropped loose from his fingers, revealing two letters standing out, white on white, in a corner : U. F. Small as they were, she couldn’t have mistaken them, for she herself had embroidered them last year as a New Year’s gift. Papa always said that his birthdate didn’t matter and since he also refused to celebrate his saint’s day (a strange fad in such a devout man), Cosette had decreed that along with St Sylvester, Ultime Fauchelevent would be spoiled and petted on the 31 of December, the ultimate day of the year.  
  
Now she did some more thinking. Papa must have lost the handkerchief some time during this year; say in November, when he’d bent down to read the inscription on Monsieur Condorcet’s statue. The young man had found it, but it didn’t appear that he wanted to return it. Cosette looked again. No, he was doing some more kissing with it.  
  
And then, suddenly, the mystery blazed into light.  
  
Back in her convent days, she and the other boarders used to read the Bible, the maiden’s staple diet in the book department. This was a girl-tailored edition, stamped by the Bishop and countersigned by the Mother Prieure, and thus reduced to a very slim volume with most of the Ancient Testament hacked off for some reason or other (the Big Girls’ yearly challenge was to smuggle in a complete edition, but they had never succeeded in all of Cosette’s six years’ residency). What stories had survived, the girls read and marvelled over for lack of stronger stuff. Everyone’s favorite was David and Jonathan because it was a rare occurence where the L-word had dodged the nuns’ axe. Thus the younger girls, their hearts aching with tender vicarious emotions, read and reread the sacred text:  _Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than the love of women_. It was well known among the forms that Marie de Valsin and Marguerite Cornier had co-written Jonathan’s letters to the exiled David, an sixteen-page work in progress which the girls passed among themselves on the sly (leading to a terrible mess-up when the Prieure stumbled upon a half-finished draft and summoned the whole community for a vitriolic sermon on the famous Revolutionary painter.)  
  
Cosette's preference went to the stories where the beloved was an older man, a mentor figure. David playing his harp to the tormented Saul, John resting his head on Christ’s chest. Best of all were Elijah losing his coat when he was taken to Heaven in a fire chariot and Elisah finding it and keeping it forever and ever, because it had belonged to his dearest –  
  
_Oh_.  
  
Why of course! How silly, how inconsiderate of her to have thought that the young man came because of her! She should have known better. She was an ugly duckling, the nuns always said, and it was universally known that nuns do not ever, ever lie. Even the Mother Prieure had seemed to think so. Whereas Papa – why, Papa was an angel. Of course the young man would want to be with Papa, who knew everything about Monsieur Condorcet and took such good care of others. It all made sense, though the sense hurt a little, like an extra pinch from her corset, because the young man was so handsome.  
  
Now he was elevating the handkerchief between his raised hands, as in prayer, and Cosette's white hat ducked a little in return to signal that she was receiving him loud and clear.  
  
It was no more than Papa deserved, to have an Elisah that would love him and take care of him better than Cosette ever could, because he was a man and thus better suited to share in Papa’s mysteries. Of course Papa, being Papa, did not have the slightest idea that he could be loved by one of his kind, as evidenced by the fact that he was still feeding the pigeons their daily crumbs.  
  
The young man folded the handkerchief tenderly away, rose, pressed one hand to his breast-pocket and took a soft, sad step towards the iron gates.  
  
Cosette, meanwhile, was taking a resolution.


	2. Chapter 2

But as tomorrow wheeled on, towing the sun and their walk in its wake, Cosette, like Napoleon before her, realized that ability was nothing without opportunity.  
  
The young man wasn't there when they entered the shaded alley where their bench stood. Her anxieties rose as the walk shortened and he still wasn't there. Perhaps he had given up on them? Perhaps he had despaired because she, not Papa, had looked on his rite of worship? Perhaps there was a secret code in the way he maneuvered the handkerchief and she, the simpleton, had totally missed it?  
  
She paused before a large chestnut, letting Papa settle first on the bench and open the book of La Fontaine's poems he had brought with him. The ivory handle of her parasol had just come unstuck and she was trying to fix it when she heard two young men greeting each other on the other side of the tree.  
  
"Thought you still in Gaillon, Théodule?"  
  
"Nay, I'm being posted to Ménant now. The way they move us chaps about, you'd think France was a blooming backgammon board. But speak of a small world! You're the second acquaintance I've come across here today."  
  
"That so? And who was the first?"  
  
"My cousin Marius. You may have passed him your way here - great big ninny, curly dark hair, head in the clouds, the rest in a yellow waistcoat and grey trousers. Now I think of it, that's odd - he looked quite the beau, and yet the last I heard of him, our venerable grandpapa was kicking him out without a sou to call his own."  
  
Cosette's heart skipped a beat. He was there! He had not failed them! And homeless! And sou-less! Oh, what a companion for Papa!  
  
"Come to gape at the mamselles, has he?"  
  
"Not he! In fact, they had had me tail him for a while, when they suspected he was chasing a bit of skirt. And do you know where I found him?"  
  
"In a... house of mirth?"  
  
"In a graveyard,  _mon cher_. Scattering flowers on some old cove's tombstone. That's gallantry for you!"  
  
Cosette heard her father call and hurried forth, her heart thumping against her ribcage. She ran a little so he wouldn't suspect her burning cheeks. Now she knew, with unshakable certainty, that the young man would come as long as they did; that he was the stuff that would keep faith with the dear choice of his soul until death parted them. All she had to do was to reassure him that his affections were well placed.  
  
And give Papa a great big nudge, Cosette thought, biting her lip while the object of her thoughts read aloud to her about ants and cicadas. The young man - Marius, now that she knew how to call him - was making his customary entrance at the end of their lane.  _Think, Cosette_ , she told herself urgently, and threw in a quick prayer to Saint Rita, the patroness of good causes.  
  
The young man stopped where she had stopped and fell into a study of the chestnut tree. Cosette drew in her breath.  
  
"Oh my," she whispered, pushing up her lip into a pout. "How silly that young man looks!"  
  
Papa, held up mid-line, left the insects to their debate on home economics. He blinked around.  
  
" _That_  young man?" he finally asked, gazing at Cosette in astonishment.  
  
"Yes!" She tapped her little foot impatiently to the ground. "He looks as if he'd never seen a tree in his life. And he's taking up our space! I don't like him at all!"  
  
Suddenly Papa began to laugh. Cosette thought she heard relief in his voice, but didn't pause to wonder why.  
  
"Oh, Cosette. You're so grown up these days I tend to forget that Mademoiselle is still a child at heart. And my child is being a little unfair." He angled his head. "Why, he looks a fine specimen to me. Bit on the skinny side, of course."  
  
Cosette made a mental note of upping their meal budget once the young man came to live under their roof.  
  
"I think you need a little reminder of what kind-heartedness is, my dear girl. Shall I read [The Two Friends](http://oaks.nvg.org/fonta8.html#setwofri) next?"  
  
_Better and better still_ , thought Cosette, and signaled to the young man that he should listen with great care.  


* * *

  
"And what is that, pray?" Papa asked two days later, when Cosette sidled up to him with a dandelion to be tucked into his blue frock coat.  
  
Spring had been charitable to their overgrown garden. It had taken her the better part of an hour to select the best and brightest item, and that was only after she had cast off sunflowers (too big), marigolds (too small) and goat’s beard (too embarrassing, should Papa’s soulmate ask the flower’s name).  
  
"Child, I can’t be seen in the streets with a dandelion. Why on earth do you want me to wear it? "  
  
"...Because I say so?"  _And because it would take a dispatch from the Archangel Michael to put you into a yellow waistcoat, so we’re making do and mend_. Her father sighed, yet smiled across the sigh.  
  
"...But when thou shalt be old," he muttered, "thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not."  
  
Cosette, spotting her cue, curled a firm hand under his arm.  
  
"Then you must play by the Book, Papa, and Follow the Leader."  
  
"Child, you are being irreverent."  
  
Can’t one be reverent and playful? Cosette wondered, because this was such an impossible day, its sun-soaked air fizzing with energy. Paris was a moveable feast, pulling at the pavement under her feet, until the last whitewashed façade of their old corner had vanished and the mad bustle of the Quartier Latin was booming all around them. Aloud she said, "No, I’m just being a cicada. Come, Papa, indulge me a little. I’ll let you scold me when winter comes again."  
  
And there was the garden already, its black and gold fence surrounded by grisettes and students, all merry-faced, all stirring with the pulse of the day. She sauntered them into the garden, Papa laughing good-humouredly while she steered him along the flowerbeds.  
  
"But this is our old alley you’re taking me to?"  
  
"Yes, why not? Today, I’m a conservative leader. Perhaps I’ll be a revolutionary tomorrow, and take you over to the big swings. "  
  
"What about young Rousseau? He might be here again, taking up your space."  
  
Cosette smiled knowingly. "He might. But I think that, today, I shall make an effort and share."  
  
"That’s my good g... Cosette, we can’t sit here!"  
  
" _We_  can’t." Cosette’s deft sidestep had brought her just before Marius, effectively blocking the young man’s attempt to rise from his bench half way down the lane. "But you should."  
  
"Cosette!" Her father was aghast. "Monsieur, I do apologize for my child’s liberty –"  
  
"No, no, do allow me – an honour and a joy, I’ll just – ." The young man doffed his hat wildly, knocking the small parasol out of Cosette’s hand. "Oh, dear God."  
  
"Yes!" Cosette beamed approval. "God" was always an excellent preamble with Papa.  
  
"Absolutely not. You were here first, and we should leave you to your peace."  
  
"No, no, the Napoleonic code on public versus private domain..." Now Papa and the young man were both trying to retrieve the parasol at once. Cosette snatched it up and open it in one motion, using it to back Papa into a seated position.  
  
"There!" she told Marius, facing him full on. "Now all you have to do is speak from the heart."  
  
" _Cosette_!"  
  
"...Mademoiselle?"  
  
"Papa, I know he has a petition for you." When she looked at Marius again, his face was trembling with a red-rose warmth that drowned his freckles and which she knew to be the preliminary shiver of pure, incandescent hope. He was asking her for permission to speak, and she bestowed it at once with a tilt of her head.

Papa, sadly, was ruining the scene by looking for his purse.  
  
"Not a  _material_  petition," Cosette rectified. "A confession, rather. For which I don’t think my presence would be quite proper, so I shall go and meditate with the ducks over here. I won’t be far."  
  
She wondered if she ought to add a blessing, but it seemed a bit precocious and she contented herself with a kiss to his father’s brow. Then the small pool was at her feet, where the ducks took shelter from the heat, and she tried very hard to pray although her thoughts felt like a swoop of bees, everywhere and sharp-sweet. She turned her face and saw that the young man had dropped to his knees, clasping Papa’s hand in his while he extended his other arm in her direction. It was very kind of him to take her as a witness, she thought, and looked down at the drowsy water where the ducks were leaving rings and trails, raising blurred visions of the young man dashing off with Papa to fight the good fight, as the Apostle said, and coming back with Papa, or in Papa’s arms, or on Papa’s back because he was on the skinny side. (But so handsome.)  
  
That was when she felt her elbow caught and fastened in a rough clasp. Cosette gasped in surprise as her father dragged her along the path, onward and roundward to the gates again.  
  
"But – " she stammered, and wrenched a look backwards, trying to see where Marius was still standing. She thought that he had his arms stretched out, but Papa was tugging her forward at a thunderous pace.  
  
"But this is very rude!" She tried to free her arm, but Papa’s clutch was not to be reasoned with, making it crystal-clear who was to lead and who to follow.  
  
"You said he was fine, and now you’re all grouchy? Oh, and you've lost your dandelion! Can’t we go back and say good-bye at least?"  
  
"We’re never going back to this place," Papa growled. That was too much, and Cosette, for the first and last time in her life, jabbed the tip of her parasol between two cobbles and stamped her foot for all – grisettes, boulevardiers, and the toothless old woman selling licorice water – to see.  
  
"Well, it’s not as if it's anything to  _me_! But really, Papa, I swear there’s no way to please you!"  
  
Her father opened and closed his mouth, peering at her. They were face to face, and while there was still thunder between them, his voice, when he spoke, sounded more sad than angry.  
  
"Sometimes, Cosette, I feel as if I no longer understand you."  
  
They retraced their steps to the Rue Plumet in silence, and in silence she parted from him, going to the pavillion while he stopped to close and lock their gate.  


* * *

  
All through the remaining afternoon she stayed in her rooms, crossing from one to the next in a cloud of vexation. Her piano would not be played; when it was, the white keys went rogue on Scarlatti, until the two cats in the next garden began to screech along and Toussaint stepped up to inquire if Mademoiselle needed a drop of laudanum. Cosette tried reading, but the pages veered under her eyes and all she could think of was La Fontaine's poem, about the true friend who had seeked out his friend in the night to pledge his devotion.  
  
How could it be that Papa, who had spent the last ten years a humble servant of Perpetual Adoration, could turn his back to it when it sprang up in the flesh and a blue frock coat? There must have been a mistake. Perhaps Papa, a glutton for sacrifice, had renounced the young man because he deemed himself unworthy? Or for her sake? Unless – oh, what a painful flash of thought – he had thought it all a prank, a cruel joke on Cosette’s part?  
  
The book fell to the ground as she rushed out. She had ordered the young man to confess, but now was her turn. She would tell Papa everything, starting from her revelation over the handkerchief, and see to it that he understand how precious he was.  
  
She knew better than t ****o seek him out in the garden when there was still daylight, and passers-by idling behind their fence. Instead she climbed the stairs down to her living room, crossed it and opened the back door that gave on the courtyard and Papa’s lodge. There he was, kneeling down on the stones with his arms extended before him, muttering aloud. At first Cosette thought that he was reciting the Angelus, then she noticed his gardening gloves and the ever-rising pile of weeds and roots next to him.  
  
"Insufferable young whipper-snapper!"  
  
Definitely not the Angelus.  
  
"Calling her his Ursule! Calling the Spring a love-letter to her!" A long-stemmed root crashed on the pile. "Breeezes! Stars! The Great Mystery of woman! Why, he’d have babbled the entire Song of Songs if I’d let him! I’ll give him the Song of Songs, the obnoxious puppy! I’ll give him a song and dance!" A loud crack followed, as a whole clump of nettles yielded to Papa’s massive force of traction. His shoulders knotted into a budge, as if he felt quite ready to unroot the cobbles next, before they slouched back into a sheepish pose. "Forgive me my wrath, o Lord," Papa muttered,"and teach me once more the way of repentance." A glare at the nettles in his hand. "In a little while."  
  
Cosette turned about and shut the door softly.  
  
She climbed the stairs back to her room and stopped on the threshold, looking at each object in turn. Letting her eyes rest on the curtains and the Japanese porcelain set again and again, until the colour red was all she saw when she closed her eyes. She felt as if she could follow each move of her strong young heart as it pumped red life into her, up to the tingle in her fingertips.  
  
When Toussaint called her, she climbed down into the kitchen and helped the old servant carry the dishes and the bread to the table. Then she said, "My father is still gardening. I think we shall give supper another ten minutes."  
  
The old woman nodded and began her retreat to the narrow kitchen.  
  
"Toussaint... " Cosette spoke quietly, looking straight at her. "Toussaint, what is the Song of Songs?"  


* * *

  
There were four Bibles in the house. One was Cosette’s slim volume, sheltered in her room. One was pocket-sized, Father’s companion on his rounds. One was in Father’s room, and one on this very table because of his favorite verse on man not living from bread alone.  
  
She walked up to it, enveloped in red light and the nameless rapture that she would feel again in two months, under the moon, when a shadow that was still the shadow-end of a dream slipped into her garden.  
  
The book fell open. Cosette began to read.

FINIS


End file.
